World's Most Exciting Chip Wrapper! (Motor Cycle News)

Member Name: pie_master

Product:	Motor Cycle News
Date:	18/06/09 (20 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Broad range, wallet-friendly bike magazine

Disadvantages: Not as smart as a glossy magazine...

If you love bikes (like myself and my fellow MCN reviewer yackers1) you'll no doubt buy bike magazines regularly. However, at an average of around £4.00 a pop this can become quite costly!

One way around this would be to buy Motorcycle News (also known as MCN) for around a third of the price of the average magazine. Clearly if you buy this every week the costs would be comparable but the difference between the magazines and MCN are quite prominent. I've listed a few major differences below:

> Current - MCN can report on very recent topics - for example, during TT week 2009 they wrote about events at the start of the week in their mid-week edition. This means bang up-to-date news on events, racing, developments etc;
> Sports - MCN has a broad and thorough focus on UK motorcycle sport and international events (motogp, WSB etc.). You will get coverage of world-stage and british motorcycle events in magazines but they won't be as comprehensive as MCN;
> Classifieds: MCN has a large pull-out classifiieds section each week with dozens of bikes for sale;
> Contributors: The writers for the main-stream magazines are very readable (especially Bike and TWO), but the sheer range of journalists and celebrities who write for MCN is staggering - everyone from Richard Hammond to Charley Boorman.
> MCN caters for a broad range of bikes and bikers and doesn't focus on sportsbikes too much.

To be honest I tend to mix an match because I like the classifieds and features in MCN but I also really like the stories and detailed buyers guides in the mainstream magazines.

Summary: Never read it? It's worth a go!